Tamesis Issue 178 January 2006

Editorial

I spent most of Christmas listening to Bach on Radio 3 � what a fantastic idea it was. It has inspired me to think that we should have a forum Bach motet day next year. More details later. There are several new dates for your diary already, but some need the venues to be arranged before they can definitely be confirmed.

Please could someone volunteer to liaise with Clifford Bartlett and take the bookings for the Striggio day in Waltham Abbey on 6th May. Clifford has already booked the Abbey and tutor (Philip Thorby) but it is our turn to do the rest of the organisation this year. The committee are all rather busy organising other events at the moment, or else can�t go, but obviously we will give you any back-up you need.

Brian Meadows-Smith lost his favourite curtal reed at the Christmas event in Amersham. I didn�t find it when I was sweeping up afterwards. Did anyone take it home?

Just too late to include in the November Tamesis I heard the very sad news of the death of John Richards. John actually taught me French at school for five years, and I remember with particular fondness his magnificently frightening performance as a murderous judge in the staff Agatha Christie play. As long-standing members of TVEMF he and his wife Isobel had managed to get to a number of TVEMF events in spite of John's increasingly poor health. We shall miss him, especially his singing at the Renaissance workshops, and extend our sincerest sympathy to Isobel.

Finally, a lot of thanks � to our contributors this time, to everyone who helped at events, and to all the people who sent kind messages of appreciation after last year�s events. Happy new year!

Victoria Helby

Chairman�s Chat

Last time I took part in Erhalt uns Herr bei deinem Wort by Praetorius I found the tune going around in my head for days afterwards but so far this hasn't happened on quite the same scale following the recent Praetorius event. However it did occur to me that this piece, with its death wish for those of other faiths, would be ideal for the militant wing of TVEMF that I jokingly referred to in an earlier Chat. Although I am not keen on the fashion for political correctness, I was relieved, but not surprised, when Irene Auerbach remarked that the words have been amended for modern use. However I do think that it is good to be aware of the original words as they are very revealing of the political climate of the time when they were written.

If you find a membership renewal form with your copy of Tamesis it means that I had not received your subscription by the time the magazine was posted. It would be nice if you can find the original form, sent with the last issue, but please try not to send your subscription more than once!

If sending me an email please use don't use chairmantvemf.org as it will join the other 30 junk emails per day in my Deleted Messages folder, from which I may possibly fail to rescue it. Sadly there are people who generate various email addresses from the domain names and then send them rubbish daily. Therefore please substitute 'david' for 'chairman'.

Next month we have a workshop studying music for the Annunciation, directed by Andrew Carwood. I have not come across him before but have heard excellent reports and I shall look forward to meeting him and to visiting the new venue of St Mary�s Church in Perivale.

David Fletcher

Moon, sun and all things
Jeffrey Skidmore

�Deus in adiutorium meum intende� by Juan Gutierrez de Padilla, a Spaniard who lived and worked in Mexico, was a beautiful two-choir piece. Jeffrey described his visit to Puebla, where he was researching this music and found the local students laboriously copying out old manuscripts. He felt rather guilty as he typed away on his laptop! In contrast, when he was working in Sucre, Bolivia, he asked if he could copy some old manuscripts and was given a CD with superb reproductions of all he needed!

The Sun was definitely shining on the fabulous �Salga el Torillo hosquillo�- a long villancico about a toreador who is compared to the Christ Child. As I was playing, not singing, I didn�t have a copy of the words, so only got the flavour of the story. There were some lovely repeating verses which urged the toreador/Christ Child to take care, to be careful, to be on guard..... I found this, and many of the other pieces, extraordinarily expressive and emotional. There was a lovely a capella piece composed by a Mexican Indian, Francisco Hernandez. This was a Santa Maria called �Tonantzin-cuicatl� - with words in Nahuatl, the Aztec language which is still spoken in Mexico. Being brought up in Mexico, I found this particularly moving. The Nahuatl sounds were very evocative! Jeffrey explained that this composer studied with a Spaniard, Hernando Franco - and that it was the custom to take your teacher�s name, reversing the order of the names.

�Convidando esta la Noche� (inviting this the night) was another Christmas pageant piece which alternated story telling with dances. It reminded me of the Posadas which we attended in Mexico at Christmas where a large group of families would act out the Christmas story as a great sung drama. �Ay Andar� by Juan de Araujo was another Christmas piece urging the participants to dance till they dropped!

The singers did a wonderful job, getting their tongues around all the difficult sounds - and I particularly enjoyed listening to the huge sound - expressive and clear. We had some excellent solos which contrasted well with the tutti passages. Jeffrey commented on the difficulty of singing/playing freely and expressively while at the same time keeping strictly to the beat. I thought we did a pretty good job! We had three children for the day - wonderfully well-behaved doing their own thing - and also contributing most happily to the percussion section. Jeffrey led us and the children with great skill and enthusiasm.

Jill Caudle�s excellent organization was much appreciated - we were 70 or so participants - and she and Jeffrey sorted out seating and music so that there was virtually no waiting around! Quite an achievement!!

We ended the day with a brief AGM � thank you to all who attended. And very special thanks to Victoria, Hazel and David who do so much sterling work for us all!

Johanna Renouf

Lesser-known polychoral music for Christmas
A workshop for singers and instrumentalists with Philip Thorby
Amersham, 11 December 2005

With his accustomed drive and great humour, Philip first introduced us to a nine-part �Angelus ad pastores� by Hans Leo Hassler. He explained that Hassler had learnt his craft at the feet of Andrea Gabrieli as had Andrea�s nephew Giovanni. This setting involved a four-part higher choir against a five-part choir of lower voices. While the composer had made no attempt to turn the piece into a conversation between the angel and the shepherds, Philip wanted the searching quality of the questions to be reflected in the performance. Beats in threes duly made their appearance after 25 minutes (Philip was actually timing himself) but he explained that in this case the reason was a kind of stretto to generate greater urgency in delivery. Further interest was produced by choirs breaking in early in what would otherwise have been very pleasant repeated passages. Five bar sections for the alleluias and through to the end of the piece produced for Philip a further unsettling of the texture in a very colourful way.

We then moved on to a setting of the same words by Giovanni Gabrieli. This was for twelve parts, with an even greater contrast between higher and lower choirs. Indeed, the lower choir started off rather reticently in what Philip described as �a dim religious light� but soon warmed up. Again, the piece had numerous examples of expectations being set up only to be confounded. There was a general pause written in for this reason and to maximise the potential of the huge acoustic of St Marks in Venice. All in all, though, I much preferred the Hassler, and in conversation over lunch there were quite a few who agreed with me.

It took us all some time to pick things up after lunch, which was a problem because the third piece, a �Quem vidistis, pastores� a 8 by Andrea Gabrieli was perhaps the most considerable of the day and contained passages of some complexity. I blame the cheesecake: I do not know what others� excuses were, but with Philip swaying in front of us to the rhythm of �I like to be in A-me-ri-ca� we were quickly and literally into the swing again. Shortly afterwards, baritones were enjoined to croon a little over the baby Jesus at �natum vidimus� or at least to �lose the Herod tendency� and get in touch with their maternal side. There was an antiphonal question-and-answer format for the fourth piece, again a �Quem vidistis� a 8, this time by Francisco Bonardo, a little-known name who wrote polychoral music in Venice during the same period. The writing was however very different to the earlier pieces of the day, more fussy somehow, so any opportunities for greater clarity and drama from the antiphonal format could not be realised. The final icing on the Christmas cake was a vigorous three-choir �Jubilate Deo� from Hieronymus Praetorius. Philip placed a tenor voice at the bottom of a first choir of cornets, lizards and recorders, and an alto at the top of a sackbuttish third choir, either side of a grand ripieno Choir 2. Once again, the piece included five bar phrases giving an energetic spring to the music. As always, our thanks go to Philip for his excellent, provocative and inspirational direction. Thanks to those who lent a hand on the day with various functions, with of course a huge thank you to Vicky for her organisation. The Drake Hall seemed to be generally admired too: in a very convenient location for trains, and with a big car park, it is a pleasant, tall and well-lit room with pretty good kitchen facilities including an industrial strength dishwasher. Wot? No mention of the Hemel Hempstead oil disaster? No, except to relate that one unfortunate member living near Hemel Hempstead had to cancel because she was surrounded by smoke and broken windows.

Geoff Huntingford

Coincidence

A while ago, standing at a bus stop I was passed by a vehicle reg. no: G4VOT - I wondered if it was a baroque musician or dancer, and if anyone had 'bagged' P4VAN or PAV4N. Some weeks later I saw B4CH followed by an initial - can't remember what it was but it wasn't J, unfortunately.

Now I was thinking about all this as I walked into Ilford to go shopping. Then I noticed parked a blue VW Golf reg. S4TIE (obviously not an early musician, though). During the course of my expedition I bought the December issue of BBC Music Magazine, and there inside was a photo of S4TIE with a paragraph about personalised number plates for musicians!

Any more ideas anyone?

Letter to the editor

As a mechanical musical instrument and automata enthusiast I am intrigued by the mention in November Tamesis of the presence of wind singers at the November playing day.

I wonder how one winds a wind singer; a key in the back as in a music box or a handle as in a barrel organ? Presumably the latter as the singing sound would have to be via a bellows. They must be useful to have � no wrong notes but synchronising them with human player and each other will need a very good organ grinding technique.

On second thoughts maybe I am wrong and it was a misprint for wild singers. That sounds like a category I could well fit into. Perhaps we should have a sub category in the voice sections of the members list; (w) for a wild voice.

Don Gill

The Early Music Yearbook 2006
(reproduced from the MEMF Newsletter by permission of Beresford King-Smith)

The first is a 'Directory of early music in the UK, with details of organisations, promoters and agents, educational establishments, instrument collections, and dealers in books, music, records and instruments.' The second comprises 'a substantial Instrument Buyer's Guide to over 380 early music instrument makers and restorers', worldwide. The third reference section is the invaluable Register of Early Music, first established some 35 years ago, in which your name will be listed (if you have completed one of their slips*) stating who you are, where you live and what you do (sing, play, etc) in some detail, by the use of various 'key' letters against your name: a very useful means of contacting others who share your specialist interests.

The EMY is produced by an Editorial Committee, and (far from those images of horses and camels!) they evidently do a really good job. The area in which the book has moved forward most notably over the past couple of years is in the 'Editorial' section at the beginning, which now makes excellent reading. Comparison with previous issues shows that in 2004, the 'Introduction and Editorial Articles' comprised 10 pages; in 2005, 26 pages; and in 2006, no fewer than 34 pages, including articles about Tomkins and Pachelbel (both with anniversaries in 2006) three articles linked to the work of the Early Music Network, something about the Early Music Exhibition, Peter Holman on The Suffolk Villages Festival, Roger Wilkes on NWEMF and Matthew Spring on the musical instruments in the Horniman Museum's collection.

More details from The National Early Music Association at www.nema-uk.org or e-mail enquiriesnema-uk.org .

Beresford King-Smith

Beauchamp House Summer School - Business as usual!

Victoria Helby